


one thing you can't put a price on

by Anonymous



Series: Happy Cooli-days! [4]
Category: American Housewife (TV)
Genre: Dramatic Oliver, M/M, Plans For The Future, Self-Doubt, Sweetheart Cooper, accidental confessions, but barely, mention of class differences, soo lightly that tagging it feels unethical, they're gonna be together for a while :)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:27:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28123833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Oliver is worried about how long he and Cooper will last, considering their obscene difference in tax-bracket. Cooper assures him that won’t be an issue. In fact, it seems that Cooper has their future a lot more firmly planned than Oliver expected.-Happy Cooli-days! Day 4: Non-AU | Insecurities
Relationships: Cooper Bradford/Oliver Otto, Taylor Otto/Trip Windsor
Series: Happy Cooli-days! [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2049231
Comments: 10
Kudos: 81





	one thing you can't put a price on

**Author's Note:**

  * For [baetrixv](https://archiveofourown.org/users/baetrixv/gifts).



> This was veryyyy lightly inspired by this line in Expensive by Rence: “Not that I don’t want to, I just can’t afford to love you,” which was technically about someone ~spending~ (AKA wasting) all of your time. BUT I thought: “Welp! Sounds nice. Let's take it at face value and spin it into a cooliver fic!”

“Hey, Oliver?” Taylor raises her eyebrow at her brother, who is currently frozen in front of the toaster with a single slice of plain bread in hand. She pokes at his arm. Oliver’s fingers go limp and the piece of bread falls to the floor.

“OLIVER!”

He blinks. With a sigh, Oliver pulls around to the other side of the counter and plops down into a stool.

“Are you not even going to pick it up?” Taylor groans in annoyance. With a glare, she bends down to retrieve the debris and slaps it down on the counter in front of Oliver. 

Without hesitation, he reaches for the uncooked bread, and glumly brings it to his lips.

Cooper stops him with a light hold of his wrist. “Don’t, man,” he murmurs sympathetically. 

“What’s _his_ problem?” Taylor wonders, already starting to fix up a bowl of cereal with the pink marshmallows Trip likes so much.

Cooper looks forlornly at his boyfriend, brushing a piece of his hair from his face. “No clue. Ollie’s been _muy_ depressed since he woke up.”

Oliver finally glances back up at Cooper, lightly nudging his hand away. He hasn’t been this sincerely upset since Spencer died.

“Okay,” Taylor scolds before crossing her arms. “What’s up with you, Oliver?”

He shrugs, limply dropping the not-quite-toast back onto the counter. “Nothing.”

“Then why are you oozing negativity all over my _positive space_ ?” That sounds like another new college epiphany. “How are Trip and I supposed to do our _happy cleanse_ if you’re sulking up a storm where we eat?”

Trip pipes up from the couch, where he’s buried into the cushions with Luthor, “The kitchen _should_ be a happy place, dude!”

Cooper leaves a supportive hand on Oliver’s shoulder but indulges in their conversation by asking, “What’s a happy cleanse?”

“Oh!” Taylor looks about ready to ambush them with a PowerPoint presentation. “It’s this thing my professor is making the class try. For one week, we have to only do, say, and _eat_ ,” she shakes the bowl of sugary puffs to emphasize, “things that make us happy!” Smiling to herself for giving a satisfactory explanation, Taylor waltzes over to the living room and squeezes Luthor off the couch so that she can share breakfast with her boyfriend.

“Why would anyone want to do _that_?” Oliver shouts at no one in particular before dropping his head dramatically.

Cooper catches Oliver’s forehead in his palm just before it can slam against the counter. “Ollie, what’s got you so down?”

“Probably his harmonies,” Trip supplies through a mouthful of Lucky Charms. 

Cooper frowns. “What are…?”

“Hormones,” Taylor clarifies. “And yeah, Oliver probably just woke up on the wrong side of puberty this morning.”

Cooper smiles weakly at Oliver. “I’m sorry you’re not feeling good.” He pulls Oliver up by the arm to join Trip and Taylor in the living room. 

It doesn’t take more than a finger to have Oliver collapsing into a little ball on the floor. Cooper sits beside him, leaning his head on Oliver’s shoulder.

“Don’t worry,” Trip chirps, accidentally splashing over-sweetened cereal milk on Taylor as it sloshes around in the bowl. “All of it will go away when you grow up, dude!”

Oliver’s eyes finally settle on the couple, and Taylor notices a glaze on them. “Oh, Oliver are you…?”

Oliver croaks out, “I’m _fine_ ,” before a tear spills over his cheek.

Cooper is mortified, suddenly gripping onto Oliver’s arm for dear life. “Ollie, what’s wrong? Did I do something?”

Oliver shakes his head profusely. “No, no, you didn’t do anything.”

“Please tell me what’s making you sad,” Cooper whispers. He takes Oliver’s hand in his lap and gently covers it with his own. “I want to know if I can make it go away.”

Taylor gives Trip a look and he responds with a confused stare. _We should go,_ she mouths. _I want to see them resolve the conflict!_ he silently yells back. Taylor rolls her eyes, pointing her head at the obviously private moment, and glares at Trip. Trip shrugs in defeat, giving in to her reasoning. _Can I bring this?_ He asks, lifting up the cereal bowl. She smiles fondly, then takes his hand so they can leave the other two alone.

“It’s pathetic,” Oliver admits once his sister and her boyfriend are out of sight. He covers his face with the crook of his elbow, and Cooper can only watch in silence as Oliver’s sleeve begins wetting.

“It’s not,” Cooper promises. “If it makes you this upset, it’s important.” He curls around Oliver in the following silence.

After a moment, Oliver lifts his head. The inner lines of his eyes are reddened when they meet Cooper’s. “When will this be over?”

Cooper tilts his head, the way Luthor used to when he didn’t understand a new command. Oliver would think it was obscenely cute if it wasn’t a painful reminder of why he’s upset in the first place.

“You know,” Oliver says.

Cooper _really_ doesn’t.

Oliver sighs shakily, then sits upright with a suddenly stoic posture. He gestures vaguely between them. “This.”

Cooper frowns. “You don’t mean _you and me_?”

Oliver nods with bitten lips. 

“Never,” Cooper insists. “What made you even think that?”

Oliver rolls his head toward Cooper and his face reads: _I will die of embarrassment if you make me say_.

Cooper furrows his eyebrows in an attempt to be intimidating.

Oliver cracks a weak smile. “ _Okay_ ,” he surrenders. “Last night, I couldn’t sleep. I just laid there staring at the ceiling. I started thinking about graduation, and Harvard, and graduating from Harvard, and then _after_ . And I realized… I know what my after _should_ be, but Coop, I have no clue how I’m gonna get there. I’m a fraud-”

“Woah! You’re not a fraud. At least, not the bad kind.”

“It’s not even that.” Oliver sighs again. “I got bored looking at the ceiling, so I rolled over and kinda… stared at you. I mean, not that I haven’t watched you sleep before-” He suddenly blushes, and it makes Cooper’s heart clench. “Not that I _regularly_ watch you sleep, either… but after thinking about the future, suddenly seeing you so close up.” Oliver pauses, trying to steady his breathing. “You looked peaceful and I just felt this overwhelming sense of… Coop, you’re so beautiful that the world would _bend_ to your will. When I was watching you, my chest physically hurt with how much I wanted to give you _everything_ . But I can’t. Even if I get rich, there’s no guarantee that I will _ever_ make as much money as you were born with. There will always be that distance between us.”

Cooper doesn’t know what to say.

“And I’ll never be able to close it.” Oliver folds into himself. “I’m not what you need.”

“Are we…” Cooper swallows. “Do you want to break up?”

“It’s not that.” Oliver’s voice goes small. He turns his head, then breathes shakily against Cooper’s shoulder, “I don’t think I can afford to keep you.”

Cooper’s body jolts like the shock literally electrocuted him. “ _What?_ Ollie.” He tips Oliver’s chin up, pulling him out of his droopy posture. “I would never dump you because of that! That doesn’t matter to me, Ollie.”

“Don’t lie,” Oliver replies in exasperation. “You’re used to the one-percent lifestyle. You think _this_ is slumming it? Some people live in a one-bedroom, Coop.”

Cooper manages to tamp down the second wave of shock. “I would love you and want to be with you _even if_ you only had one bathroom.”

Oliver chuckles at the sheer absurdity of the statement. Seeing Cooper’s earnest smile, he makes an effort to wipe away his drying tears.

Cooper kisses his nose. “I know you’ll be successful, _mi corazón_.”

Oliver can’t help but laugh at Cooper’s incessant, random sprinklings of Spanish.

“But honestly, you don’t need to make much money,” Cooper explains with a naive grin. “We already have lots!” 

Oliver smiles, not exactly following. “What do you mean _we_?”

Cooper shrugs casually. “Won’t we, like, share all of our money when we get married?”

Oliver blinks, slowly. “When we get _what_?”

Cooper looks much more confused than should be allowed, given the bomb he just dropped. “When we get married. Or are you not into the whole marriage thing? I mean, I have aunts who never got married and lived totally full lives, but then again, the tax benefits are pretty obvious-”

Cooper is interrupted by Oliver clumsily pressing a hand against his jaw, tilting his head, and kissing him. The subsequent noise of surprise he makes is muffled between Oliver’s lips. He can feel the stickiness of Oliver’s tear stains when his nose brushes against his cheek. And best of all, he can feel Oliver smiling against his mouth. When they pull apart, Cooper’s pupils are wide with joy.

Oliver lingers, still hovering close. “I mean, we gotta,” he says, voice hoarse. “With or without the tax benefits.”

Words can’t begin to touch the swelling happiness that starts to absorb Cooper. With a cheerful glow, he lets his arms fall around Oliver’s neck and leans in for another kiss.

“Wow,” Taylor deadpans from her vantage point on the staircase. “Cooper just told Oliver he was going to get _half_ of his inheritance and Oliver is excited about their wedding.”

Franklin and Trip are sharing the cereal bowl on the step below her. “I’ll be Best Man,” the two remark simultaneously. They pause, glaring accusingly at the other. Each is wielding a rainbow marshmallow in their grasp. Taylor lightly taps the back of Trip’s head to discourage him from brawling a literal child.

  
“Oliver’s in _love_ ,” Anna-Kat adds in sheer disbelief. “Looks like the Grinch’s heart finally grew three sizes this year.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was the last day of Non-AU! I hope you've enjoyed it. Look forward to the beginning of AUs next week!
> 
> As always, comments and kudos are appreciated. Yell abt cooliver to me @ thanatsarans.tumblr.com!


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